YOUNG PEOPLE IN A BIG STRUCTURE:
A QUANTITATIVE STUDY OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SOME WORK-RELATED FACTORS, ORGANIZATIONAL IDENTIFICATION, AND OCB OF YOUNG EMPLOYEES IN A PUBLIC INSTITUTION IN INDONESIA
Final thesis submitted for the degree of Master of Science in Communication Studies
Krisna Sulistiyani / s1482998
Communication Studies Faculty of Behavioral Science
EXAMINATION COMMITTEE
1.
Dr. A.D. Beldad
2.
Prof. Dr. M.D.T. de Jong
29/08/2014
A quantitative study of the relationship between some work-related factors, organizational identification, and OCB of young employees
in a public institution in Indonesia
Preface
This master thesis is not only a requirement for finishing a master degree in communication studies, but also a summary of what I have learnt and became my interest within one year of studying in University of Twente. I always think that the thesis topic suitable for me will not be far from issues related to my identity as a young employee.
Taking concentration in corporate and organizational communication has widen my point of view about communication studies, that the study is genuinely multidisciplinary and potential to bring major change if the knowledge is applied in organizations. Communications play important roles in an organization by channeling organizational message in the right way and empowering employees to express their opinions. As for young employees, I believe that the dynamic, openness, and willingness to change of an organization that is delivered through right messages will influence them to feel oneness with and encourage them to stand for the organization.
I would like thank the supervisors for their helpfulness in the process of making this thesis.
To Dr. Ardion Beldad, I am thankful for your enlightenments and critics, as well your patience, that give a great help to catch a grip in this research. To Prof. Menno de Jong, I greatly appreciate your inputs that make me more understand about this topic. For both of you, I am very grateful for the guidances and opportunities to learn alot from you.
Last but not least, I would like to thank the Ministry of Communication and Informational
Technology Republic of Indonesia for the opportunity to study in one of the best universities in
the Netherlands. I also thank Indonesian Student Association Enschede for the great friendship
that makes this city feels like home, and Ariëns Katholieke Studenten for the good friendship in
faith.
Abstract
The growing number of young employees makes them a potential human capital asset that play important role in organizations’ success. To ensure that young employees performances is supporting organizational values and goals, it is important to observe the feeling of oneness with and belongingness to an organization among young employees that is predicted by the present study to have significant relationships with the willingness to go extra mile for the organization.
This study also aims to gain insight of what factors that are significantly related to organizational identification and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) among young employees. By knowing the related factors, organizations could perform effective approaches in promoting organizational identification that, in turn, motivate the employees to engage in OCB. Factor analysis finds OCB measured in this study is categorized as OCB for the sake of co-workers (OCB-I) and for the sake of the organization (OCB-O).
This study thus observes several frequently-measured intraorganizational factors, namely value congruence, quality of top-down communication, distributive justice and procedural justice, along with two factors which rarely related to organizational identification and OCB, namely motivational drives and perceived organizational readiness for change, using an online survey on 372 young employees of a government organization in Indonesia.
The results of this study show that value congruence, perceived organizational readiness for change, and motivational drives have positive and significant relationships with organizational identification. It is also found that organizational identification is significantly related with young employees’ willingness to supports other members of the organization, whereas more significances of work-related factors to OCB-O are needed to embody organizational identification among young employees to be the willingness to do extra efforts for the organization.
Keywords: organizational identification, organizational citizenship behavior, value congruence,
perceived organizational readiness for change, motivational drives, quality of
communication, distributive justice, procedural justice, young employees
Table of Content
Preface Abstract
1. Introduction ... 1
1.1. Study background ... 2
1.2. Research gap ... 3
1.3. Research questions ... 5
2. Theoretical Framework ... 6
2.1. Organizational identification ... 6
2.2. Organizational citizenship behavior ... 7
2.3. Factors related to organizational identification and OCB ... 8
2.4. Organizational identification and OCB ... 14
3. Method ... 17
3.1. Research design and procedure ... 17
3.2. Participants ... 18
3.3. Factor analysis ... 19
3.3.1. Exploratory factor analysis ... 19
3.1.2. Confirmatory factor analysis ... 24
3.2. Reconstructing the model ... 27
3.3. Final Measures ... 30
3.3.2. Independent variables ... 31
3.3.3. Dependent variables ... 32
3.4. Reliability test and correlation analysis ... 33
4. Results ... 35
4.1. Regression analysis ... 35
5. Discussion and Conclusion ... 42
5.1. Discussion ... 42
5.1.1. Organizational identification among young employees ... 42
5.1.2. OCB-I among young employees ... 44
5.1.3. OCB-O among young employees ... 45
5.2. Theoretical implications ... 46
5.3. Practical implications ... 47
5.4. Limitation and future research directions ... 49
5.5. Conclusion ... 49
References ... 51
List of Figure
Figure 1. Research model ... 16
Figure 2. Final research model ... 28
List of Table Table 1. Demographic characteristic ... 19
Table 2. Exploratory factor analysis ... 21
Table 3. Confirmatory factor analysis ... 25
Table 4. Final hypotheses ... 28
Table 5. Descriptive statistics, intercorrelation, & scale reliabilities ... 34
Table 6. Regression analysis on organizational identification ... 36
Table 7. Regression analysis on OCB-I... 37
Table 8. Regression analysis on OCB-O ... 38
Table 9. Validity of hypotheses ... 40
1. Introduction
Organizational identification is a specific form of social identification, which describes the needs of individuals to classify themselves into an organization, which serves as social category, to segment and order their social environment and to locate or define themselves in the social environment (Ashforth & Mael, 1989). Organizational identification plays important roles in the relationship between an organization and its members. As discussed in the literature of organizational behavior, organizational identification influences both the satisfaction of the individuals and the effectiveness of the organization (Ashforth & Mael, 1989). Individuals seek to identify with social groups in order to feel safe, to acquire a sense of belonging, to enhance their self-esteem and to satisfy a search for transcendent meaning (Pratt, 1998) whereas organizations foster identification in order to ensure that organizational interests are strongly embedded in employees’ mind (Cheney, 1983; Pratt, 1998) which, in turn, possibly influence employees’
willingness to strive for organizational goals (Elsbach and Glynn, 1996; Bartels et al., 2006).
Meanwhile, the willingness of employees to go extra mile, or strive for organizational goals by performing particular behaviors to facilitate organizational functioning is acknowledged as organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). The behaviors are related to innovative and spontaneous activities that go beyond the specific task requirements (Katz, 1964; van Dick et al., 2006). The influence of organizational identification to OCB is based on the needs of employees to identify with the organization and to take pride in the organization (Rioux & Penner, 2001; van Dick et al., 2006). Employees who more likely to identify themselves to the organization might internalize the values and norms of the organization (Van Knippenberg, 2000; van Dick, Grojean, Christ, & Wieseke, 2006). Therefore, employees perceive organization’s perspective and goals as their own (van Dick et al., 2006). Employees also tend to contribute to the success of the organization when organizational identification is strong among them (van Dick et al., 2004).
Therefore, for the reasons, organizations need to promote organizational identification among the employees in order to prompt employees to go extra mile for the organization. Employees’
commitment in performing OCB possibly enhance employees’ productivity, help coordinate activities between team members and work groups, and, in the end, maintain the consistency and stability of the organization’s performance.
Above illustrates the connection between organizational identification and OCB. The
relationship provides a framework which underlies the present study. To effectively promote
organizational identification to employees in order to encourage them performing OCB,
organizations need to understand the most effective approaches by observing factors related to
the constructs. By knowing what factors have significance to organizational identification and
OCB, effective approaches of promoting organizational identification and OCB can be
implemented. Accordingly, the present study aims to observe some factors in the relationship
between employees and the organization that are related to organizational identification. The factors are also predicted to have relationships with OCB which assumed as the consequence of organizational identification in the present study. Therefore, this study focuses on three types of relationships: the relationships between several factors — value congruence, perceived organizational readiness for change (PORC), motivational drives, quality of top-down communication, distributive justice, and procedural justice — and organizational identification;
the relationships between the factors and OCB, and; the relationship between organizational identification and OCB.
1.1. Study background
The study described in this report is conducted to determine what factors that are signifcantly related to organizational identification and OCB among young employees of a government institution in Indonesia. The number of young employees in government institutions continues to grow as the result of the increasing number of vacant positions offered by the insitutions, following the expiration of recruitment moratorium policy that had been applied in the country for two years until 2012. In the organization where the present study was conducted, 279 new employees has been recruited through the open recruitment system in 2013. By the addition from the latest recruitment, employees with age under 30 years old reach the number of 1059 people in the organization, establish 18.57 per cent of the total number of employees. The number of employees within this age group is only the second to the number of employees within the age group of 51-55 who are approaching retirement, which are 1533 people or 26,9 per cent of the total employees.
As parts of the newest batches of employees, young professionals in the organization
categorized into two group, employees who have had working experiences in private sectors
before moving to this job or who just recently have graduated from educational institutions. The
working-experience background possibly influence the way employees recognize their current
working organization and to what extent the employees identify to it. Related to the work of
Loughlin and Barling (2001), early working experiences shape the following work-related
attitudes, values, and behaviors of the workers. In learning the new norms associated to their work
roles, young employees build new behaviors or change their old behaviors, and also adjust their
expectations of the new organization with the reality in the workplace (Roberts, Caspi, and
Moffitt, 2003; Walk, Handy, & Schinnenburg, 2013). Based on the explanation by Pratt (1998) of
the paths to identification, the changes of behaviors and expectations of the young employees
possibly caused by affinity, or the discovery of organizational values that match their own value,
and by emulation, or identification to the organization by incorporating organizational beliefs and
values into their own identities.
There are possibilities of young employees to discover that the norms and the reality within the organization are not congruent with their own values and expectations. The incongruence could occur at least due to two circumstances experienced by the employees. First, it is related with young employees’ identity as members of ‘Generation Y’ or ‘The Millenial Generation’ that were born after 1982 (Howe & Strauss, 2007). According to Howe and Strauss, the elder members of the generation have graduated into the workplace, including record high numbers of members in government institutions. Solnet and Hood (2008) view this generation as self-reliant, independent, looking for instant rewards, and prefer to work in short periods. Therefore, the character possibly create low tolerance of young employees to formalized, hierarchical, ruled based, impersonal environments and the lifelong employment system of government institutions.
Second, in the term of generation gap with the more senior employees, it is not possible that “us versus them” mentality rise between employees, where young employees tend to believe that the organization, managers, and senior co-workers recognize their hard work less than they deserve (Gursoy, Maier, & Chi, 2008), whereas senior employees consider that young employees are hard to recruit and integrate into the workplace or even lack skills and a work ethic (Gallicano, Curtin,
& Matthews, 2012).
The conditions above possibly retain employees to feel oneness to the organization and lead to disidentification of young employees from organizational aspects. The outcomes of organizational disidentification are varied, from surviving in the organization because of the continuance commitment but holding strong negative views of the organization (Kreiner &
Ashforth, 2004) to doing counterproductive work behaviors that possibly harm the organization.
Regarding the education level and the increasing number of young employees, they are considered as the most potential human capital asset of the organization. They are in a progress to play important roles in the success of the organization. Therefore, the organization needs to more closely observe the state of organizational identification among its young employees and the willingness of them to do the discretionary task for the organization, as well to examine factors related to organizational identification and OCB.
1.2. Research gap
Prior studies have extensively observed factors related to organizational identification and OCB of employees. The studies in organizational identity mostly focus on structural features of an intergroup context, such as intraorganizational competition or the organization’s relative status to be related to organizational identification (Olkkonen & Lipponen, 2005). However, the approaches are relatively abstract and distant to be measured, that may turn out poorly predict organizational identification (Olkkonen & Lipponen, 2005).
In the prior studies, the investigation of factors related to OCB focuses on job satisfaction
(Williams & Anderson, 1991; Moorman, Niehoff, & Organ, 1993; van Dick, van Knippenberg,
Kerschreiter, Hertel, & Wieseke, 2008), organizational commitment (Williams & Anderson, 1991; Moorman, Niehoff, & Organ, 1993), personality characteristics (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Paine, & Bachrach, 2000), and transformational leadership (Bolino & Turnley, 2003; Wang, Law, Hackett, Wang, & Chen, 2005). However, the present study did not observe the factors because of the characters. Job satisfaction and organizational commitment would be challenging to observe because the factors are multidimentional, as well as organizational identification and OCB, which means there are some basic factors predict the variance of the factors. Next, opinion about personal factor which first considered more likely to determine OCB compared to incentive factors (Borman & Motowidlo, 1993; Organ & Ryan, 1995) is debated by Podsakoff and colleagues (2000) who propose that insentive and reward-related factors have a stronger effect to OCB than personality characteristics. Finally, related to the present study, transformational leadership is ineffectively practiced in government institutions because it is incongruent with institutional and bureaucratic context in the organizations (Currie & Lockett, 2007) where supervisore are more functioned as policy-makers than leaders. Based on the considerations above, the present study focuses on exploring factors that more concern to the intraorganizational context and employees’ everyday work experiences. It is assumed that the factors will clearly explain the tendencies of organizational identification and OCB among young employees in the present study.
Observation of the literature found that factors in several different studies of organizational identification and OCB are used as single antecedents or only with other factors within the same dimensions with them. For example, a study by Postmes, Tanis, and de Wit (2001) observe the relation between vertical communication and horizontal communication in organizations with organizational identification, while Moorman (1991) observe organizational justice dimensions, including distributive justice and procedural justice, and their relationships with OCB. As the consequence, the literature does not provide information about the strength and significance of a relationship between each factor with organizational identification and OCB when it is compared to other factors or dimensions. Hence, this study observes relationships between organizational identification and OCB with a number of factors from different dimensions.
The present study is also expected to contribute for research of organizational identification and OCB, especially in the settings in public organization, young employees, and Asian culture.
While majority of the studies observe employees in profit organizations, it is considered that
studying organizational identification and OCB in nonprofit organization would contribute in
answering inquiries about the factors of organizational identification and OCB in the workplace
with less economic incentives.
1.3. Research questions
To pursue the goal of this study, research questions have been formulated:
1. What are the factors that positively and significantly related to organizational identification and organizational citizenship behavior?
2. To what extent is organizational identification related to organizational citizenship behavior?
To address the research questions, a number of hypotheses were formulated. Different
hypotheses are visualized through the model formulated for this study that is presented in the next
chapter. The concept of organizational identification, OCB, and the related factors are discussed
in the chapter of theoretical framework.
2. Theoretical Framework
The chapter presents a review of the main concepts in this study. Firstly, the concept of organizational identification is discussed. Next, organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) is explained in the following part. The third part explore some factors related to organizational identification and OCB. The last part of this chapter present the relationship between organizational identification and OCB from prior studies. Furthermore, in this chapter, positive and significant relationships between the factors and organizational identification, the factors and OCB, and also organizational identification and OCB, are predicted in hypotheses. To conclude the chapter, research model are presented at the end of this chapter.
2.1. Organizational identification
The term organizational identification is defined as “the perception of oneness with or belongingness to an organization, where the individual defines him or herself in terms of the organization(s) of which he or she is a member” (Mael and Ashforth, 1992, p. 104).
Organizational identification is a specific form of social identification where an individual defines him or herself in terms of their membership in a particular organization (Mael & Ashforth, 1992).
The concept of organizational identification is developed from social identity theory (Tajfel &
Turner, 1979, 1985), which claims that people tend to classify themselves and other into various social categories (Tajfel & Turner, 1985; Ashforth & Mael, 1989). According to the theory, organizational identification is based on people’s strive for a positive self-concept and membership in social groups as a part of one’s identity (Hogg & Terry, 2000; van Dick, Grojean, Christ, Wieseke, 2006).
Identifying themselves to a particular organization makes individuals regard the organization’s perspective and goals as his or her own (Van Knippenberg, 2000; van Dick et al., 2006). One is strongly identified with an organization when (1) his or her identity as an organization member is more salient than alternative identities, and (2) his or her self-concept has many of the same characteristics he or she believes define the organization as a social group (Dutton, Dukerich, & Harquail, 1994). Within these conditions, when employees strongly identify themselves to the organization, the congruence between the distinctive, central, and enduring part of organization and the distinctive, central, and enduring part of theirs becomes larger (Dutton et al., 1994). Therefore, the organization becomes more attractive for employees.
The concept of organizational identification should be distinguished from related constructs, such as organizational commitment and internalization (Ashforth & Mael, 1989;
Riketta, 2005). Organizational identification refers to the cognitive awareness that the self
constitutes part of the organization (Ellemers, De Gilder, & Haslam, 2004) while organizational
commitment is the relative strength of organizational identification and involvement in
organization (Reichers, 1985; Ashforth & Mael, 1989). The aspects found in organizational commitment are the willingness to exert effort on behalf of the organization and desire to maintain organizational membership. When compared to internalization, organizational identification refers to self-categorization with the organization while internalization refers to the incorporation of values, attitudes and so forth as self-guide principles (Ashforth & Mael, 1989).
Therefore, organizational commitment and internalization are considered as a possible consequence of organizational identification. The differences between organizational identification with the other constructs lie in the forms of employees’ psychological attachments to the organization caused by the constructs.
Organizational identification results a number of positive attitudinal and work-related behavioral outcomes (Bartels et al., 2006). Mael and Ashforth (1992) propose that strong organizational identification to an alma mater has positive relationships with several behavioral supports of the alumni, such as willingness to give financial contributions and willingness to advise others to attend the institution. According to Riordan and Weatherly (1999), other prior studies (Brown & Williams, 1984; Dutton et al., 1994; Riordan, 1995) also suggest greater commitment to organization, cohesion, citizenship behavior, positive evaluation of the organization and fewer counterproductive work behaviors as the consequences of organizational identification. Bartels (2006) discovers that several factor, such as intention to leave the organization, organizational citizenship behavior, in-role and extra-role performance, and absenteeism are frequently researched as the consequences of organizational identification.
Moreover, van Dick and colleagues (2008) propose that OCB is considered a discretionary type of efforts by employees as the result of high valued goals.
The relationship between organizational identification and OCB is manifested in positive supports from employees toward the organization that emerge from the strong organizational identification. When the organizational identification of employees becomes stronger, they are motivated to contribute to the success of the organization (van Dick, Christ, Stellmacher, Wagner, Ahlswede, Grubba, Hauptmeier, Höhfeld, Moltzen, & Tissington, 2004). The support is shown as positive attitudes and behaviors which are cooperative to other organizational members (Dutton et al., 1994) and contributive to organizational goals (Elsbach and Glynn, 1996; in Bartels et al., 2006).
2.2. Organizational citizenship behavior
Reflecting the definition by Organ (1988) and the conceptualization by Borman and Motowidlo (1993), van Dick and colleagues define organizational citizenship behavior as “any discretionary individual extra-role behavior advantageous to the organization” (van Dick et al., 2006, p. 284).
Katz & Kahn (1964) (as cited by Uçanok, 2008) propose that organizational citizenship behavior
(OCB) is important behaviors required from employees that content innovation and spontaneity,
beyond the prescribed role requirement for the effective functioning of an organization. In its development, the concept of OCB shifts from extra-role behavior to more likely the part of job requirement, particularly when employees define their role in the organization more broadly (van Dick et al., 2006) and feel that the behavior is discretionary and more controllable by themselves than in-role requirement (Moorman, Niehoff, & Organ, 1993).
Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) is a multidimensional construct. The first categorization of OCB, proposed by Smith, Organ, and Near (1983), has two dimensions:
altruism, which refers to helping behaviors aiming directly at specific people, and general compliance, which refers to helping behaviors more broadly towards the sake of the system as a whole. Further, Organ (1988) deconstructed the dimensions and added new dimensions of OCB, resulting five-factor model consisting of altruism, courtesy, conscientiousness, civic virtue, and sportsmanship. The factors later could be condensed to be a three-factor model of OCB: helping behavior, civic virtue, and sportsmanship (Podsakoff et al., 1993; Podsakoff & MacKenzie, 1994;
Uçanok, 2008).
Previous research (Organ & Lingl, 1995; Organ, Podsakoff, & MacKenzie, 2006) postulate two basic factors related to OCB, namely work-related attitudes and personality (Uçanok, 2008).
Regarding the interaction between employees and the organization, the present study focuses on observing work-related attitudes factor. Relationship between work-related attitudes and OCB can be explained by social exchange theory (SET), which described by Blau (as cited in Uçanok, 2008) as “relationships that entail unspecified future obligations and generates an expectation of some future return for contributions” (p. 1143). Motowidlo (2000) proposes that the concept of OCB is originally derived from an interest in behavioral consequences which are the results of employees’ satisfaction of organizational effectiveness. According to SET, employees are likely to reciprocate positive behaviors of the organization toward them in the form of behaviors desired by the organization.
2.3. Factors related to organizational identification and OCB
Several factors related to organizational identification and OCB are observed within the present
study. The factors consist of reliable constructs in the literature and factors that are predicted to
have significant relationship with organizational identification and OCB. Considering the
relationship between organizational identification with the antecedents and between
organizational identification with the consequences (Ashforth & Mael, 1989; Bartels, 2006), it is
reasonable that beside related to organizational identification, the factors are assumed to have
correlation with OCB. To thoroughly observe the relationship between employees and the
organization, the present study evaluate intraorganizational-level factors. Therefore, the factors
observed in this study describe the relationships between employees and the organization in the
same degree. As the consequence, relationships in broader scope, such as interorganizational
relationships or between the organization and its stakeholders, and in narrower scope, such as in workgroups, are not included in the present study.
Three factors in the present study have been proven related to organizational identification and OCB in prior studies, namely value congruence (Boxx et al., 1991; Riketta, 2004; Cable &
DeRue, 2002), quality of top-down communications (Smidts et al., 2001; Bartels, Douwes, de Jong, & Pruyn, 2006; Kandlousi, Ali, & Abdollahi, 2010), and organizational justice (Moorman, 1991; Olkkonen & Lipponen, 2005). This study also observes 2 other factors considered positively and significantly related to organizational identification and OCB tendencies of young employees, yet rarely observed in prior studies. The factors are motivational drives of working and perceived organizational readiness for change (PORC). This study examines motivational drives in its relationship with organizational identification and OCB on the basis indicated by Pratt (2000), that proposes the gap between one’s current and ideal identities provides motivational drives to change the current identity through identification. It is also supported by the categorization of motivation by Coursey & Pandey (2007) and Camilleri (2006) (as cited in Chahal & Mehta, 2010), that propose motivation can be divided as motivation to help others who are in need (OCB) and motivation to put the best effort to achieve required goals (in-role performances). Afterward, PORC is observed based on the importance of identification management in the time of transformation in an organization (Pratt, 2000) and the importance of commitment to change in the organization (Neves & Caetano, 2009).
Value congruence
Erdogan, Kraimer and Liden (2004) reformulate the definition of value congruence by O’Reilly,
Catman, & Caldwell (1991) and Kristof (1996) as “the match between the organization’s values
(or culture) and individuals’ values” (p. 306). According to Bartels (2006), the match can be
based on several aspects, such as the similarity between personal and organizational beliefs
(O’Reilly, Chatman and Caldwell, 1991) or between employees and the organization goal
(Kristof, 1996). Dixit (2002) illustrates that organizations which have an idealistic or ethical
purpose maybe more attractive to workers who share these goals. Reciprocally, organizational
identification considered as the extent to which the employees define themselves by the same
attributes as those which define the organization (Bartels, 2006). According to Boxx and
colleagues (1991), the agreement of employees toward the values and goals of the organization
relates to job satisfaction, commitment and cohesion of employees with the organization. It is
found in the study by Cable and DeRue (2002) that an employee was less likely to identify with
the organization when he or she does not share values with the organization. Thus, the following
hypothesis is posed:
Hypothesis 1a. The congruence between individuals and organizational values is positively related to organizational identification.
It is indicated in prior research that individuals’ behaviors are driven by a specific goal or value (Uçanok, 2008). Moreover, it is also found that individualistic values have a higher prediction effect on work centrality compared to normative work value (Uçanok, 2008). Prosocial behaviors is discovered strongly related to the similarity between self and organizational values (O’Reilly & Chatman, 1986). In contrary, Cable and DeRue (2002) propose that little value congruence leads to less willingness to help the organization with extra-role contribution. Value sharing, addressed as person-organization fit in the study by Cable and Derue, was found as the best predictor of organizational outcome variables, including citizenship behaviors. Thus, it can be assumed that:
Hypothesis 1b. The congruence between individuals and organizational values is positively related to organizational citizenship behavior.
Perceived organizational readiness for change
Armenakis, Harris and Mossholder (1983, p.681), cited by Cinite, Duxbury, and Higgins (2009, p.
265), describe perceived organizational readiness for change (PORC) as “organizational members’ beliefs, attitudes, and intentions regarding the extent to which changes are needed and the organization’s capacity to successfully make those changes” (Cinite et al., 2009, p. 265).
Changes in an organization can be seen as strategies to strive in competition with other organizations or actualize reform orientation in the body of organization. The changes take forms of reorganizing, downsizing, or implementing new technology (Wanberg & Banas, 2000). Citing Davy, Kinicki, and Scheck (1991), Neves and Caetano propose that in periods of instability, employees evaluate their position in the organization and try to understand the organization in terms of its relational significance for them (Neves and Caetano, 2009). Therefore, the organizational readiness to change that shown in the behavior of managers and the agents of change create employees’ understanding about the organization’s image (Cinite et al., 2009).
Based on the prior findings, it can be assumed in the present study that if employees perceive the organization is ready in performing change, they will have positive image about the organization, which open more possibility to stronger organizational identification. Against this background, it is assumed that:
Hypothesis 2a. Perceived organizational readiness for change is positively related to
organizational identification.
When change in organization is perceived by employees as necessary, can be implemented, fruitful both to employees and the organization and supported by management’s commitment, employees’ positive reactions to the change will be developed (Neves & Caetano, 2009; Holt, Armenakis, Feild, & Harris, 2007). The employees feel a desire and sense of obligation to provide support for the change when they perceive that the organization is ready for the implementation of change (Neves & Caetano, 2009). According to the scholars, this condition leads employees to reflect the willingness to follow the implementation of change in their organization citizenship behavior. Thus, it can be expected that:
Hypothesis 2b. Perceived organizational readiness for change is positively related to organizational citizenship behavior.
Motivational drives
The term motivational drive is described as the forces which basically stimulate the employees to work or to work more and better (Chahal & Mehta, 2010). The approach of self-determination theory (SDT) distincts regulations of work motivation into intrinsic motivation, which refers to doing something because it is inherently interesting or enjoyable, and extrinsic motivation, which refers to doing something because it leads to a separable outcome (Ryan & Deci, 2000). Ryan and Deci also propose that there are three employees’ psychological needs related to working: the need for relatedness, which means the need for experiencing positive relationships with others;
the need for competence, refers to the need for accomplishing challenging tasks and obtaining desired results, and; the need for autonomy, related to the need to experience freedom of choice and the opportunity to initiate behavior. In a more brief explanation, Pratt (2000) proposes that motivational drives rise from the gap between one’s current identities and the ideal identities. The employees are motivated because the dimensions of needs could be fulfilled by working for the organization. The needs could be translated as motivational drives that encourage employees doing their work. Motivational drives was illustrated by Chahal and Mehta (2010) as a condition facilitated by an organization to motivate the employees working better, for example by creating a conducive condition in work unit meeting that allows employees integrate in a team work.
According to Chahal and Mehta (2010), prior studies categorize motivational drives into
two dimensions: inspirational motivational drives, which is tendency to act or put best of efforts
to achieve required goals, and compassion motivational drives, refer to a sympathetic attitude of
the members to support others (Coursey & Pandey, 2007; Camilleri, 2006; in Chahal & Mehta,
2010). Anderfuhren-Biget, Varone, Giauque, and Ritz (2010) propose that motivational drives of
public employees consist of three dimensions of work motivation: public service motivation, team
relations and supports, and material incentives. Public sector motivation (PSM) is defined as “an
individual predisposition to respond to motives grounded primarily or uniquely in public
institutions and organizations” (Perry & Wise, 1990; in Moynihan & Pandey, 2007, p. 40).
Therefore, it can be assumed that the more employees driven by motivational factors of working, the stronger the need of individuals to attain the ideal identity as the members of the organization.
Thus,
Hypothesis 3a. Motivational drives of the employees are positively related to organizational identification.
Motivation is the primary determinant of employees’ performance by which the employees decide to deploy their energy and perform their efforts toward the organization (Anderfuhren- Biget et al., 2010). When employees perceive the exchange between what they want from jobs and what they get from the organization are balanced, they will focus the energy toward the organization's goals. Moreover, based on van Knippenberg (2000), it is assumed that employees more likely to perform citizenship behavior when highly motivated in their work. Van Knippenberg proposes that when employees perform a more complex task, their motivation to succeed in the work leads to social identity process where the employees adopt others’ thoughts and concepts by which a high performance is produced as a collective interest (van Knippenberg, 2000). Thus, the following hypothesis is posed:
Hypothesis 3b. Motivational drives of the employees are positively related to organizational citizenship behavior.
Quality of top-down communication
Byrne and LeMay (2006, p. 149) define quality of information as “whether the communication is
relevant, accurate, reliable and timely” (Zaremba, 2006 p. 114; Marques, 2010, p. 51). The
definition thus used as the criteria of communication quality, that is supposed to be timely, clear,
accurate, pertinent, and credible (Zaremba, 2006; Marques, 2010). Using the term vertical
communication, Postmes and Tarnis (2001, p. 227) describe top-down communication as “work-
related communication up and down the organizational hierarchy”. The scholars propose that
vertical communication will be more strongly related to organizational identification in
comparison with horizontal communication, which refers to socio-emotional interactions among
peers. It is in line with Dutton and colleagues (1994) that suggest internal communication to
influence employees’ organizational identification and reduce heterogeneity in perceptions. The
quality of top-down communication depends on to what extent the organization provide
information by considering the needs of the employees (Bartels, 2006). A qualified top-down
communication should be able represents the organization as a whole. Thus, it helps employees to
define the values of organization and to more easily identify themselves with the organization (Ashforth & Mael, 1989; Postmes & Tarnis, 2001). From the prior findings, it can be assumed that:
Hypothesis 4a. The quality of top-down communication is positively related to organizational identification.
As employees are accustomed with corporate messages, they will have the habit of consuming it and giving feedback about their functioning in the organization (Smidt et al., 2001).
The feedback, therefore, is determined by the quality of communication within the organization.
The quality communication, that is perceived by employees as a positive attitude from the organization toward them, will motivate employees to engage in OCB (Koys 2001; Bolino, 1999;
in Kandlousi et al., 2010).Wheatley (2002) asserts that communication commitment in an organizations means providing right messages in the right place and time, for the right people, with the right words and actions, through the right process and technology (as cited in Marques, 2010). In line with SET, the more employees find that the information provided by the organization meet the criteria of communication quality, they more likely to reciprocate the advantage of recieving the information from the organization (Kandlousi, 2010). Therefore, against this background, the following hypothesis is posed:
Hypothesis 4b. The quality of top-down communication in the organization is positively related to organizational citizenship behavior of the employees.
Organizational justice: distributive justice and procedural justice
Organizational justice is defined as “the role of fairness as it directly relates to the workplace”
(Moorman, 1991, p. 845). According to Moorman, organizational justice can be categorized into
distributive justice and procedural justice. Distributive justice is defined as “the perceived fairness
of the outcomes and the allocation of resources in the workplace” (Olkkonen & Lipponen, 2005,
p. 204), whereas procedural justice refers to “the perceived fairness of the formal decision-making
procedures used in the organization” (Olkkonen & Lipponen, 2005, p. 204). The study by
Olkkonen and Lipponen (2005) confirmed that distributive justice and procedural justice were
positively related to organizational identification. It is explained that perceived organizational
justice leads employees to feel respected by the organization, eventually they also feel proud of
their membership (Olkkonen & Lipponen, 2005) and more likely to express pride of their
membership and a positive view toward the organization (Reade, 2010). Against this background,
these following hypotheses are posed:
Hypothesis 5a. Distributive justice perceived by employees is positively related to organizational identification.
Hypothesis 5b. Procedural justice perceived by employees is positively related to organizational identification.
Previous studies, either observing both dimensions of organizational justice simultaneously or separately, view that the perception of organizational justice by employees is related to their tendencies to perform OCB. Distributive justice is discovered by Scholl, Cooper, and McKenna (1987) to have positive and significant correlation with OCB. By the scholars, distributive justice is addressed as employees’ perception of job equity and pay equity in organizations. Inequity in this factor possibly causes employees to lower their performance of OCB. On the other hand, some later studies (Moorman, 1991; Lambert, Cluse-Tolar, Pasupuleti, Hall, and Jenkins, 2005) found that procedural justice has positive relationship with OCB, even more than the correlation between distributive justice and OCB. Organ (1988) proposes that fairness perceptions may influence employees to do OCBs by prompting them to define their relationship with the organization as a social exchange. A study by Moorman (1991) found that the decision to practice OCBs may be a function of the degree to which an employee believes that he or she has been treated fairly by the organization. Separately, prior studies (Moorman, 1991; Lambert et al., 2005) found that procedural justice had more positive relationship with OCB than distributive justice.
The reason is because OCB appeared more as the result of positive evaluations of organizational system, institution, and authorities rather than fairness of outcome (Moorman, 1991). Against the background, it can be expected in the present study that:
Hypothesis 5c. Distributive justice perceived by employees is positively related to organizational citizenship behavior.
Hypothesis 5d. Procedural justice perceived by employees is positively related to organizational citizenship behavior.
2.4. Organizational identification and OCB
Relationships between organizational identification and OCB as the outcome is based on to what extent the consequences of organizational identification influence employees. According to Ashforth and Mael (1989), there are three general consequences of organizational identification that are possible to occur. First, individuals tend to choose activities congruent with salient aspect of their identities and to support the institutions embodying those identities. Second, social identification affects the outcomes that are conventionally associated with group formation, including intragroup cohesion, cooperation, and altruism, and positive evaluations of the group. It implies that one may accept others in the capacity of the organization’s members but not always
in interpersonal level or based on interaction. Third, identification may engender internalization of, and adherence to, group value and norms and homogeneity in attitudes and behavior.
Both organizational identification and OCB are multidimensional constructs that are related with a number of factors. As the constructs may share same factors, organizational identification as one’s self concept is a possible motivation of OCB. Based on the study by Rioux and Penner (2001) about motivational causes of OCB, van Dick and colleagues (2006) focus on
‘organizational concern’ as one of the motivational causes that mostly underlie the relation between organizational identification and OCB. It is proposed that employees have two motives for doing OCB: to identify with, and take pride in the organization. Because of the discretionary character of OCB, employees will consider either to perform or withhold such performance depends on their perception of the organization.
Employees who more strongly identify to their organizations are also more likely to go the extra mile for their organization and to put extra effort to help others (van Dick et al., 2006). The observation of a group of physicians by Dukerich, Golden, and Shortell (2002) found that there was a positive relationship between the strength of organizational identification and the extent to which the physicians engaged in cooperative and organizational citizenship behaviors. Based on the evidences from previous research, it is hypothesized that:
Hypothesis 6. Organizational identification among employees is positively related with organizational citizenship behavior.
Finally, figure 1 in the next page presents the model that illustrates the relationships
between the work-related factors, organizational identification and OCB according to the
formulated hypotheses.
Figure 1. The research model of relationships between the work-related factors with
organizational identification and OCB
3. Method
To explain how the research was conducted, the method and measures that were used in this study are presented in this section. The first part of this section describes the design of the research and the procedure of data collecting for this study. Profile of participants of this study will be delivered in the second part. The third part presents the result of exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) of all items that were used in the questionnaire, followed by the reconstruction of the model as the consequences of results of the analyses. The fourth part explains the final measures that were used for each variable. Finally, the last part presents the results of reliability test of the scales and correlation analysis between the variables.
3.1. Research design and procedure
This study used an online survey to capture opinion, perception, and attitude of participants related to organizational identification and OCBs, and factors that possibly contribute to the extent of the constructs. The survey was also designed to obtain information about the composition of gender, educational background, length of working in the organization, and previous working experience in other sectors of the participants. The data collecting method is considered able to tap subjective feelings of the participants (Fowler, 2009). Hence, the data analysis could be simply and directly conducted without needing more coding. For this study, online survey method is considered as the most efficient method because some working units are located in different cities. The online survey was formulated in and distributed from Qualtrics website. The survey was available online for the whole month of May 2014. The link to the online survey was attached in an introduction letter sent through the internal messaging service in the intranet system of the organization to 1,185 young employees in all units in the organization, including academic units and research units in other cities in Indonesia. The introduction letter mentioned that the participants were asked to be honest and objective in their participation. The anonimity and confidential treatment of the data were important issues that were stresed in the letter. In data gathering period, several participants sent reply e-mails for further information about the survey and about inability in opening the survey page; however the problems were eventually solved.
The online survey consists of a self-report questionnaire that was formulated with the
existing scales from the literature of organizational studies. The questionnaire was first translated
from English to Bahasa Indonesia by the researcher, and then translated back to English by a
colleague of the researcher in Indonesia who had never seen the questions before. Prior to the
distribution of the final questionnaire, a pre-test was conducted in order to evaluate the
questionnaire draft and avoid errors and ambiguities of statements in the online survey. Ten
Indonesian master students of University of Twente were asked to fill out the questionnaire in a
simulation, which means the students acted as employees of the organization and the data was not used in the analysis. Several improvements were made based on the comments given in the pre- test. Overall, the students reckoned that the words ‘leaders’, ‘the management’, and ‘workgroups’
in several statements should be addressed more specifically using the terms used in the organization and some questions were too long and complicated to be understood.
3.2. Participants
The participants of the present study were young employees of a government institution at ministerial level in Indonesia. To select the participants, a list of employees provided by Bureau of Personnel of the organization was examined to choose employees which meet a set of criteria:
they must be born after 1981 and has been working for the organization less than 6 years. There are two considerations that underlie the criteria. First, the organization merely admits applicants with a bachelor degree, or the majority of applicants, who are under 28 year old within the end of year in recruitment. Second, it is in line with the definition of ‘Millennial Generation’ by Howe and Strauss (2007) that refers to people who are born in 1982 to roughly 2005. Thus, the maximum age of the participants is 32 years old.
The selection resulted in 1185 employees as potential participants for this study. Of this
number, 449 employees (38%) initially started the survey. Among this number of responses, 77
participants did not answer the questionnaire completely. Therefore, the total usable answers that
were received are 372, indicating a 31.4 per cent response rate. Although the survey was open for
employees who are 32 years old or below, there were no employees under the age of 20 who
participated in the survey. The dominant group of participants has 4-6 years of working in the
organization, constitute 41.7 percent of the sample. The proportion of participants in term of
gender is relatively balance. Table 1 below shows the demographic characteristics of the
participants.
Table 1. Demographic characteristics of the research sample (n=372)
3.3. Factor analysis
3.3.1. Exploratory factor analysis
A preliminary factor analysis was conducted to verify the interrelationship among the variables of this study. Originally, the present study also intent to measure relationship of both organizational identification and OCB with several more factors, including perceived organizational support (POS), participative decision making (PDM), perceived external prestige (PEP), quantity of communication, and teamwork. However, the result of exploratory factor analysis (EFA) showed that those factors cannot be included in the analysis. Exploratory factor analysis was performed using Varimax rotation, with the extraction factor set to 13 in accordance of the total number of independent and dependent variables. The result, as presented in table 2, showed several factors loaded into same components, which meant several items measured the same things. The findings caused rearrangement of variables of this study as explained below.
First, EFA found that all items of both POS and PDM loaded into same component with distributive justice. Moreover, the scores for items of POS and PDM were lower than the scores
Measure Items Frequency Percentage (%)
Gender Male 194 52.2
Female 178 47.8
Age < 25 33 8.9
25-30 206 55.4
> 30 133 35.8
Length of working 0-2 77 20.7
time (in years) 2-4 140 37.6
4-6 155 41.7
Total 372 100
Level of educational High school 10 2.7
background Academy or vocational school 29 7.8
Bachelor degree 266 71.5
Master degree 67 18.0
Total 372 100
Working experience Yes 244 65.6
before entering No 128 34.4
the organization
Position in the Head of section 9 2.4
organization Professional staff 49 13.2
Structural staff 314 84.4
of distributive justice scale’s item. Hence, both POS and PDM scale were removed from the factor analysis. Second, the five-item scale of PEP, which was used to measure how an employee thinks outsiders view his or her organization (Smidts et al., 2001) had three items loaded into the same component with value congruence and quality of top-down communication although the original scale is found highly reliable in several prior research significant to social identity study.
Hence, the remaining two items was considered inadequate to represent the data of this variables (α=.53) and thus were removed from the analysis.
Third, besides having some items that loaded into the same components with other factors, quantity of communication and teamwork were also removed because it is understood that the factors did not directly measure the relationship between individuals and the organization. The factors tent to represent the relationship of employees with co-workers or their working units.
Therefore, the scale of quantity of communication and teamwork would represent different level of relationship in the organization than the other factors if was used in the analysis.
Finally, four items from motivational drives scale loaded into different component from the
first 10 items in the scale. Because the 10 items loaded into the same component, the four items
were removed from the measure. In total, five variables and four items of motivational drives
scale were removed from the analysis.
Table 2. Exploratory Factor Analysis with Varimax Rotation of Thirteen Factors of the
Measurement Scales
Scales
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
Perceived organizational readiness of change Senior management is decisive with respect to organizational goals, priorities and strategies
concerning the change 0.70
Leaders themselves have bought into the change and promote it by behaving in a manner consistent with the
change 0.72
Senior management defines the course of change and
stays the course for several years 0.71
There is a champion of change at the most senior level
of the organization 0.69
Change agents have done research to select the right type of change that addresses the underlying causes of organizational problems rather than just symptoms 0.65 Change agents provide valid arguments to justify the
change 0.71
Change agents have considered different options of
change implementation 0.65
Change agents are competent to answer employee
questions about the change 0.74
Distributive justice
I am fairly rewarded at this place based upon my
education level 0.69
I am fairly rewarded in [name of the organization]
considering my responsibilities 0.74
I am fairly rewarded at this place based upon my job
skill 0.77
At this place, I am not properly rewarded for my hard
work (R) 0.50
I am fairly rewarded considering the work that I do 0.58 Participative decision making
I have a say in decisions that affect my work 0.55 I am asked to make suggestions about how to do my
job better 0.57
[Name of the organization] values the ideas of workers
at every level 0.50
My opinions count in [name of the organization] 0.54 Perceived organizational support
[Name of the organization] takes pride in my
accomplishments 0.50 0.44
[Name of the organization] strongly considers my goals
and values 0.44 0.53
[Name of the organization] really cares about my well-
being 0.43
[Name of the organization] value my contributions to its
well-being 0.60
[Name of the organization] shows very little concern for
me (R) 0.50
[Name of the organization] is willing to help me when I need a special favor
Components
(continued)
Table 2. Exploratory Factor Analysis with Varimax Rotation of Thirteen Factors of the
Measurement Scales (continued)
Scales
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
Motivational drives
A stable and secure future 0.56
Chance to learn new things 0.76
Chance to use my special abilities 0.77
High salary 0.61 0.40
Opportunity for advancement 0.74
Variety in work assignment 0.66
Working as part of a team 0.70
Friendly and congenial associates 0.55
Chance to benefit society 0.57
Chance to exercise leadership 0.67
Freedom from supervision 0.78
Freedom from pressures to conform both on and off the
job 0.77
Chance to engage in satisfying leisure activities 0.68
High prestige and social status 0.40 0.46
Quality of top-down communication
The shared work-related information in [name of the
organization] is timely 0.56
The shared work-related information in [name of the
organization] is accurate 0.67
The shared work-related information in [name of the
organization] is relevant 0.57
The shared work-related information in [name of the
organization] is objective 0.74
The shared work-related information in [name of the
organization] is complete 0.64
The shared work-related information in [name of the
organization] is useful 0.70
Teamwork
Co-workers in my department are direct and honest with
each other 0.59
The team and its members are open for criticism 0.71
Disagreements in the team are resolved cooperatively 0.68
The team I work with functions synergistically 0.57
I cannot rely on my co-workers in the team for helps and
backups in work (R) 0.41
Co-workers in my department confront problem
negatively (R) 0.47
Co-workers in my department are good listeners 0.70
Co-workers are concerned about each other 0.63
OCB
I assist my supervisor with his or her work 0.64
I make innovative suggestions to improve my
department 0.69
I volunteer for things that are not repaired 0.57
I orient new people even though it is not required 0.65
I help others who have been absent 0.62
I attend functions that are not required but that help
improve the image of [name of the organization] 0.61
I help others who have a heavy work load 0.69
(continued) Components
